LAHORE, Dec 14: The Labour Party Pakistan (LPP) has demanded cancellation of lease of 90 squares (2,250 acres) of agricultural land allotted to retired army officers in Okara district in June 2007 during the tenure of former chief minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi.

Releasing the copies of lease deeds at a press conference here on Sunday, LPP spokesman Farooq Tariq and Anjuman Mozaraeen Punjab (AMP) vice-president Nadeem Ashraf said that the land was allotted to retired army officers including former NAB chairman Lt- Gen Shahid Aziz, former Gujranwala corps commander Lt-Gen Khalid Munir Khan, former Fauji Foundation chairman Lt-Gen Syed Arif Hussain and Lt-Gen Javed Alam Khan. They said that each of the retired army officers had been leased four squares (100 acres) of land for raising four mares.

They said that former chief minister had decided to allot the agricultural land to retired generals in clear violation of a decision given by the Supreme Court (SC) on Dec 18, 2003.

The SC bench consisting of Justice Javed Iqbal, Justice Sardar Raza Khan and Justice Karamat Nazir Bhandari had declared allotment of land to army personnel against Section 10 of the Colonisation of Government Land (Punjab) Act. The apex court had held that government land could not be allotted to army officers or any employees of a development agency or local body under the provisions of that act.

The LPP and AMP office-bearers said that the lands allotted to the retired army officers in Chak-20, 22, 23 and Chak-24, Renala Khurd, were being cultivated by local farmers for the past 100 years. They had to give up cultivation of the lands located in low lying areas due to water logging and salinity after 1947 but resumed it after the area dried up following drought in 1999.

The former chief minister had allotted the land to the retired army officers under the defunct scheme for raising mares instead of accommodating the farmers cultivating it for the past 100 years.